The ability to quickly, easily and efficiently communicate has always been a critical component, if not a necessity, for successful business operations. Today, as the global economy continues to expand, the ability to communicate is even more important. In partial response to these demands, sophisticated telecommunications equipment has been developed that permits users to quickly and easily place, receive, transfer and switch telephone calls as well as provide advanced features such as call accounting and voice messaging functionality. As these features have become widely available in local telecommunications equipment, such as private branch exchange (PBX) telephone switches, central offices, key and hybrid telephone systems (small telecommunications switches), call accounting systems, voice messaging systems, computer telephony interface (CTI) devices, automatic call distribution (ACD) devices, internet servers, etc., the demand for and installation of these systems has continued to expand. Often, a vast number of sites have layered or "integrated" two or more of the aforementioned devices and rarely are these different devices using the same operating system or of the same brand. More often, these differing devices include a mixture of operating systems and brands.
Such a mix of advanced telecommunications equipment, however, still typically relies upon a significant amount of manual human interaction to install, setup, operate, modify and maintain. Specifically, when a new telephone switch such as a PBX is to be installed at a facility, not only must the physical equipment itself be installed, but the equipment must be configured and programmed to operate as desired by the users of the facility. In fact, as more and more advanced features have become available in the equipment, the burden on the equipment installer to initially setup and configure these features for the specific needs of the end user and the burden on the technician in maintaining and modifying the equipment, the associated cable records for the equipment, and cable and service activities, has also increased.
When a telephone switch is accompanied by other telecommunications equipment, such as voice messaging systems, call accounting systems, CTI devices, wireless communication servers, or ACD devices, installation inconveniences are still further multiplied. Specifically, many of these ancillary pieces of equipment require additional entry of user information that is duplicative of information already entered into the main telephone switching equipment. In such case, not only must a technician program the main telecommunications switch, but additional time (and money) must be spent for programming ancillary equipment with similar information. Typically, these systems must be perfectly synchronized with each other or problems will occur. As a result, the total cost of the installation is greatly increased and data entry error rates are greatly increased.
To further complicate the installation and management of this equipment, each discrete change to one component of a telecommunications system often requires additional, similar changes to several other components. Furthermore, these additional changes typically must be done in a specific order and, since the operating system design of each of the telecommunications devices often changes from manufacturer to manufacturer and from device to device, by using an entirely different command structure for each different component. Therefore, when done manually, a technician must remember different command structures for each of the devices that require programming and also must remember the order in which the changes should be made and further may require different terminals, passwords, procedures, software, etc. Thus, a highly skilled technician having familiarity with all of the various types of equipment that make up the telecommunications system must perform these changes, or as is more common, multiple technicians are required. Clearly, with even a limited number of devices that require installation, maintenance, or programming, the likelihood of an error is greatly increased.
Since modern telecommunications equipment provides substantial flexibility in programming to accommodate varying preferences of different users, it is often necessary to begin the installation of such equipment by surveying users as to their desires and preferences so that these can be accurately reflected through programming of the equipment. This is typically done by distributing a questionnaire to each user to receive information sufficient to allow the equipment to be properly configured. Thus, not only is there a substantial time commitment needed to review and enter the information received on such questionnaires into the equipment, but significant effort on the part of each and every user is also required to complete the questionnaires. Typically, collection of this data and entry of it must wait until the system is installed, while in the present invention described below, this information can be stored externally, checked for omissions, checked for errors or duplications and processed months in advance.
Such disadvantages are particularly highlighted when an outdated PBX or central office system is replaced with an improved system. In such case each user is typically surveyed as to their preferences, as above, and this information is manually re-entered after installation of the improved PBX or central office system. Thus, since equipment upgrades impact each and every user in a facility, a significant devotion of resources is required. As a result, the benefits of advanced features provided by improved telecommunications equipment often does not outweigh the installation costs and thus many organizations either do not upgrade their equipment, or delay such upgrades as long as possible.
Large organizations are also often confronted with the need to augment existing PBX systems with newer versions of the same brand of equipment or equipment manufactured by a different manufacturer. Such organizations are then confronted with a host of difficult installation, operation, coordination and maintenance problems associated with managing disparate systems having different capabilities, operating characteristics and command protocols.
Furthermore, post-installation maintenance of such telecommunications switching equipment often requires intervention of a skilled technician. For example, adding new users to the system requires that information sufficient to identify the user, her equipment and her preferences be programmed into the system. Often, this programming must be performed by a technician, who must make a service call to the facility to complete such programming. Also, management of detailed records documenting the telecommunications system setup must be manually kept for each device. That is, cable numbers, user identification and preferences, equipment types and locations, etc. must all be maintained separately from the system itself. Again, as a result, the costs involved in maintaining the telecommunications system is greatly increased.
Typically, programming of a telecommunications switch such as a PBX is performed by entering a series of special codes into a designated telephone handset connected to the PBX. Thus, by using the keypad and any display capabilities of the telephone, programming information can be entered into the PBX system. While such a system has the advantage of not requiring additional support equipment, such an interface is not user friendly and thus is extremely difficult for untrained personnel to use. In addition, even a skilled technician is limited in that each item to be programmed must be repetitively entered for each user on the system. Thus, for each station connected to the system, the technician must enter a complex series of digits that identify a parameter to be set and the appropriate data for that parameter. For systems having hundreds or thousands of stations, this process is not only extremely time consuming but is also prone to significant data entry errors.
While several attempts have been made to overcome one or more of the above deficiencies, none have succeeded in providing a telecommunications installation and management system that substantially reduces the amount of manual human interaction required to install and maintain telecommunications equipment. For example, a number of manufacturers have developed so called "dumb" terminals that interface with a PBX telephone switch to facilitate programming thereof. These dumb terminals (or a PC emulating a dumb terminal) generally do not contain any processing capability, but rather act to display data stored within a memory in the PBX switch and to receive and forward user input to the switch. Thus, for example, the current operating parameters for a given telephone station can be requested from the switch, displayed on the terminal and modifications received from a user can be returned and stored in the telephone switch memory. In fact, to a technician skilled in programming a switch, the enhanced personal computer interface of TTY interface is no more efficient than a dumb terminal or programming via a telephone station. The present invention, however, overcomes these deficiencies.
Implementations of such systems, however, typically respond slowly to user requests for data due to the relatively slow speed of data communication between the terminal and the switch, internal latency of the switch and upon encountering a busy condition. Thus, when information for a given telephone station is requested, that information must be accessed by the telephone switch and transferred through a communications link to the terminal for display thereon. Similarly, further delays result due to the need to immediately upload any modified data to the switch. Thus, practically, these systems have significant "lag" in responding to user requests. As result, while these systems may simplify the complexities of the programming process, they do little to actually accelerate that process.
Specifically, power to search for duplicate entries, perform logical sorts, generate custom reports and provide other advanced features is virtually always lacking. Therefore, in order to check data or search for a problem, either each record must be manually pulled up and reviewed one at a time, or a complete mass listing must be printed and checked manually.
Furthermore, these management systems are often proprietary and inflexible in that they can operate with only a single brand or type of telecommunications equipment, and furthermore can only be physically connected to a single component of the telecommunications system at a time. Thus, these systems fail to provide for real-time modification of operational parameters for one or more devices having differing command structures that are integrated into a single telecommunications system or network.
As an alternative to the above solution, Northern Telecom has developed a system called Meridian Manager.TM., which includes a personal computer and associated software that facilitates switched connection control of one or more Meridian 1 PBXs. The Meridian Manager.TM. system includes a local database within the personal computer that stores a mirror image of some of the information stored within the Meridian 1 PBX primarily dealing with button assignments for telephones. Thus, when some of the information in the PBX is to be changed, the change can be made in the local database and subsequently downloaded to the PBX at a desired time. In this manner, the "lag" associated with retrieving and displaying the information programmed in the PBX is reduced. Again, however, a skilled technician is unable to gain any efficiency with such systems and thus is unable to reduce the time or costs associated with program changes of these devices.
A similar system, called Switchview by Switchview, Inc. includes software that facilitates switched connection control of one or more Meridian 1 PBXs. Like the Meridian Manager.TM. system, the Switchview system includes a local database within a computer that stores information used to control the operation of the Meridian 1 PBX. Like Meridian Manager.TM., however, the Switchview system fails to provide a real-time interconnection with multiple telecommunications devices having differing operating command structures and operating systems to allow for management and control of such devices.
In addition to the above devices, several additional devices have been developed to provide a less complex user interface to facilitate programming of telecommunications equipment. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,509 to Cocklin et al. discloses a workstation having a graphical user interface for use with a manager controller to control and implement changes to telephone sets of a telephone system. The workstation enables the customer to selectively enter telephone lines, features and directory number changes into key button locations of a displayed telephone. These changes are converted into program instructions and transmitted to the manager controller to control the telephone switching system to assign the selected lines, features and directory numbers to the telephone set. The reference, however, is directed to updating information stored at a telephone company switching office rather than at a local private branch exchange, and fails to disclose a system in which an external computer connected with PBX equipment is used for programming the PBX equipment to integrate, manage and support a plurality of different telecommunications products having diverse command structures. In addition, the reference does not disclose a system that includes the capability to integrate multiple telephone switches, brands, networks, subsystems, peripherals and software.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,304 to Sakai discloses an electronic switching system that includes a PBX connected with an external computer. Programs for standard switching functions are stored in the PBX, while programs that apply only to a portion of the telephone terminals (called service functions) are stored in the external computer. Alteration of the service functions is accomplished by altering the programs in the external computer, thus avoiding the need to alter programs in the PBX. The reference, however, again fails to disclose a system in which an external computer connected with PBX equipment is used for programming the PBX equipment to integrate, manage and support a plurality of different telecommunications products, or that includes the capability to integrate multiple telephone switches, networks, subsystems, peripherals and software.